Reproduction
and Accumulation of Capital
“The conversion of a sum of money into means of
production and labour-power, is the first step taken by the quantum of value
that is going to function as capital. This conversion takes place in the market,
within the sphere of circulation. The second step, the process of production,
is complete so soon as the means of production have been converted into
commodities whose value exceeds that of their component parts, and, therefore,
contains the capital originally advanced, plus a surplus-value.”
Thus Marx
describes the working of capitalism, and he goes on to describe this cycle as
the origin of capital. As chapter 23 goes on, Marx describes the position of
the working class in terms that are easy to understand today. This chapter of
Capital speaks of what has in recent years been referred to as the
“accumulation path”. Marx concludes Chapter 23 by saying:
“Capitalist production, therefore, under its
aspect of a continuous connected process, of a process of reproduction,
produces not only commodities, not only surplus-value, but it also produces and
reproduces the capitalist relation; on the one side the capitalist, on the
other the wage-labourer.”
And he
begins Chapter 24 by saying:
“Hitherto we have investigated how
surplus-value emanates from capital; we have now to see how capital arises from
surplus-value. Employing surplus-value as capital, reconverting it into
capital, is called accumulation of capital.”
Later on,
Marx writes that the result of capitalistic production is threefold:
1)
“that the product belongs to the
capitalist and not to the worker;
2)
“that the value of this product
includes, besides the value of the capital advanced, a surplus-value which
costs the worker labour but the capitalist nothing, and which none the less
becomes the legitimate property of the capitalist;
3)
“that the worker has retained his
labour-power and can sell it anew if he can find a buyer.”
This and
the subsequent is material that is familiar and widely accepted today.
“Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the
prophets!” says
Marx.
Image: Photograph of women workers (welders), USA,
1940s
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